How To Save Dollhouse

Apr 29, 2009 15:13

Despite last Friday's episode getting an all-time low in terms of ratings, it's still possible that Joss Whedon's mindwipe drama Dollhouse will make it to a second season, if rumors are to be believed.

Fox executives are holding out a glimmer of hope for the show, noting its loyal core and its strong DVR numbers.

In the show's favor, the fact that everything else they've run on Fridays has had a similar lack of success... and the show's buzz, even if a lot of that centers around whether or not it's going to make it to a second season. Creator Joss Whedon goes between being pessimistic to cautiously hopeful about the opportunity, but perhaps both he and Fox should consider the idea suggested by Time Magazine's James Poniewozik:

At its best moments, it's had the feeling of events rushing forward toward an imminent climax. Which makes me think that, in a perfect world, Dollhouse would have been not a series but a miniseries.

I wonder if the ideal, then, would be for Fox to return Dollhouse, for a limited and final second season, to resolve its story without the burden of stretching it out with one-off episodes.

On the face of it, it seems like a no-lose situation; Whedon gets to bring his story to some kind of conclusion, Fox gets the goodwill from bringing back a show that it'd be well within its rights to cancel (and the chance to promote it as a "special mini-series event", and the fans get another, if shorter, season of the show. Which, of course, means that it will never happen. But we can always hope...

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